Jump to content
Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

Bunchies' Training


Bunchies95

Recommended Posts

Not a lot happened this past week. had my parents down for a visit, so that really cut into my training. Did go to the range and chrono some rounds. I settled on a load for now with Titegroup/Bayou Bullets and have 500 rounds ready to go.

Sunday was the River City match, which went pretty well. Some of the stages were from last years double Tap and some are from this years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Replies 75
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Yesterday was a classifier match at The Bullet Hole. We shot four classifiers and a stage from Space City. This was my best match to date. I shot the match clean and only a few make up shots. It felt really slow shooting, I figured my times were always a few seconds longer than they really were. I was letting my front sight dictate my speed. I think I found the off button on my brain, just need to keep doing that.

CM 08-03

I shot this in 4.28 seconds with one charlie. I was shooting from left to right and the charlie was on the final shot, just tried to push the split at the end.

CM03-03

11.12 seconds with one Delta. I went T1,T2,T4,T3, PP3,PP2,PP1. I missed PP1 on the first shot, but instantly knew it and made it up quickly. I also reloaded between boxes. Not necessary on a clean run, but I am glad I did as it didn't waste but ~.25 sec or so. Debating if I should have started on T2, but will look into it during a practice.

CM 99-42

10.47 sec 60 pts. Started on PP4 and worked from outside in and did the same on the other side of the barricade. I figured the elevation differences were not that big and would be wasting time making duplicate transitions.

CM 99-10

10.11 50 pts. I drew to T1 and worked my way to the inside then went T6-T4 in box B. On T3 I started moving before the final shot and threw a delta. I have been working on shooting moving out of position in practice, but it was too soon to bring to a match.

6-10 split from Space City

21.84 2A2C

I started on the left paper and transitioned inwards. Same for the other side. The second plate rack kicked my butt, got into too big of a hurry and had to reload before the paper. On one of my reloads I picked up a spent mag, recognized that it was too light and made another change. Good that I recovered, but I need to arrange my table mags so I know exactly which ones to pick up.

Overall was a very good match. I won production and should move up into B class. If I figured it right I went from a 50.8% last month to ~65% this month. Pretty big jump that is due to practicing and making sure my hits were clean.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In live fire practice today I set up a small stage with really close targets but with no shoots along the a zones. Because of the close distance, it really made you want to go really fast, but the no shoots penalized you very hard for doing so. I wish I had taken videos of the session but I forgot my camera. First starting out, I went fast and hit some no-shoots. I was able to make up those shots pretty quickly; I am really starting to be able to call my shots more often. At least the bad ones anyways. Looking at my timer, I could not tell when the make up shot was made just using the splits. That is a very good thing. After my first couple of runs, I managed to start getting some very clean runs. Adding about a full second on the stage to my fastest time gave me all alpha runs. I just needed to wait split seconds more on some shots.

I also tried running the stage a few different ways. As I was starting in the middle of the stage, I could go right or left off with no penalty. I found that going from Left to Right felt the most natural. The other direction felt uneasy, as I was having to focus on my footwork. This led to a few missed reloads as I was actively thinking.

Near the end of the session I set up a typical classifier type stage. 6 targets with some hard cover, shoot freestyle then reload stron/weak. I have been working on strong/weak shooting in dryfire quite a bit lately. Today, I had quite a few failure to ejects during the strong hand only parts. I believe that I was limp wristing the gun not allowing it to cycle properly. This means that I have gotten lazy in my dryfire sessions on gun grip. In the future I need to grip the gun with as much strength as I do in live fire. I wish more stages had weak hand shooting as I am pretty good at it. My times were consistently 0.5-1 second faster weak hand with better hits to when compared to strong hand. I don't fully understand this. My guess right now is that weak hand is unnatural so I put more focus into everything I do. I will pay attention to where my focus is in my next session.

My plan for next session is to work on the plate rack as that is a big part of the Space City Challenge next weekend. I plan on starting at about 15 yards, working back to 25, then bringing it in to 8. Everything will be focusing on going one for one, but at 8 yrds I need to get very fast.

Also, I bought a .22lr to use for working on some transition drills and shooting while moving. Need to do a little trigger work to get it where I want it, but it seems to be a tack driver of a pistol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Well Space City went pretty well for me. Came in 21st Overall 5th B class and 3rd C class. I actually made B class before the match but the MD used the previous months classifications.I have to say I was impressed with the match. My first impressions looking at the stages online were that they were going to be very simple and it was going to be a hose fest. I was right that they were very simple. Usually the biggest choice was do I start on the left or right. However it was not a hosefest. There was a 16 yard plate rack and some odd angles on targets.

I did not have any major errors during the entire match. Out of 8 stages I only had one no shoot and one mike on seperate stages. I achieved ~90% of the match points as well.

The things that went right: Every stage went according to plan, Called most of my shots (even the mike, reloads went very well and cleared my one double feed pretty quickly. Overall the entire match went pretty smooth. I shot on the first day as I was an RO. This made it feel like a big club match, which was exactly how I treated it. No extra pressure, just a bonus prize table at the end.

I need to figure out why my gun had a double feed. I remember reading somewhere that using a 14lb recoil spring with the stock striker spring was a bad idea. I don't understand why that would be, but I will change that out before my next match.

I also need to work on steel a little bit more. I rushed some of the shots and had to make up a few misses. I think it is just visual patience that I need, allowing a split second longer for the sight picture. Most of my misses were high right, so I doubt it is a trigger issue.

I also picked up the Mike Seeklander training material. Pretty interesting read. The drills are very nice and the plan seems reasonable. I like the live fire drills a lot, but I think I am going to modify some of the dry fire drills. I think in addition to the drills he has scheduled, I will also add in some drills from Steve Andersons books as well, mostly the movement drills.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I'm into the third week of Mike Seeklander's training program. The results so far have been pretty interesting. Phase 1 has very simple drills that test the basics of gun handling. My times have not really improved too much, but my consistency really has. My accuracy has also improved a bit; whether it is because I am taking slightly more time to ensure I get the hit I want or i am better understanding what I need to hit my target, I do not know. Earlier this year a head shot was a concern for me, but now I can consistently hit the head exccept when I am pushing the pace. I am getting closer and closer to getting two alphas every time. I was expecting 6 points, now I expect 8 with the full ten happening more and more often. When I am dropping points in the drills, they are very close to getting the full points (within an inch).

I really like the long distance challenge drill. That drill is helping me with shot calling the most. At that distance, I can tell a bad shot from a good one. This had led to me seeing bad shots at 7 and 10 yards as well. Well I say bad shots, they are still within the A zone sometimes on the body, but I noticed a significant drop in the sights as I jerked the trigger. It was a good shot, but not what I wanted. Is this the beginning stage of calling my shots every time as the shot breaks instead of taking careful aim and really focusing on the trigger?

As I have been working on reloads, I have noticed something. My best reloads timewise are when I can remember actually seeing the magazine into the mag well or when everything felt so smooth that I do not remember a thing. Which one is better? I'd like to think the not remembering is, but I cannot control when that happens yet. My fastest reloads are about 1.6 seconds from shot to shot with 2.0 being the norm.

Working on transitions, I have noticed (by accident) that my physical transition is pretty fast, but from shot to shot is almost twice the time. I noticed this because I have been working on prepping the trigger before I get to the target, and had a shot go off early. It was a C with half the split that I normally have. This means that I am taking too much time to reacquire the front sight after a wide transition. Transitions about 1 yd are not a problem, the splits and transitions are the same. Just something to pay attention to.

Before I started the training program, I took a skills assesment test. Here are the results.Skills Test Results 29April2012.pdf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Worked on pick up and loading this morning and was trying some new things out. The two methods I tried were racking the slide from the top with an overhand grip and racking the slide from the front with an underhand grip. My theory is that the underhand grip is faster as my hand is in the position it needs to be in after seating the mag. Plus I can build my grip faster. The overhand grip requires me to rotate the gun a couple of times plus my support hand needs to rotate a couple of times as well.

My problem is, that the overhand grip is very consistent. I can ensure I am loaded every time. With an underhand grip, the racking of the slide is more finesse than brute force and I find that one in a while I do not fully rack the slide and a round does not chamber.

Debating on weather I should work more on the underhand grip to get the consistency up, or just keep going with what works and try and pick up the speed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Went to a local match yesterday. Never really been a big fan of shooting that match and it lived up to my expectations: late start, illegal stages, and classifier was not set up right. But aside from that, it was a good match.

The good, I only had one mike all day. It was on a classic target at 15 yards. I cannot believe that I pulled the shot that much and even looking at the video I still don't believe it. But that target doesn't lie and the chances of a perfect double at that distance is far more unlikely than a miss. The rest of my shots at the distance were only two inches apart at most.

This match also forced me to shoot on the move. Something that I have been relectuant to do in a match setting. I did very well on those two stages, dropping very few points. I moved and shot a little slower than I probably could have, but it was still faster than standing and shooting then moving.

I did have one big error on a stage. It had a clam shell that was very slow to activate and I planned to blow it off. To make the plan work and save the reload, I had to go one for one on steel around a barricade. Needless to say, I didn't and my plan fell apart. I ended up with two standing reloads as I didn't get back on plan properly.

Lessons learned this weekend:

Shooting and moving is fun. Still needs some work, but I am confidant enough to do it in a match now.

I am able to keep my gun up during reloads now. I wasn't aware that I had my gun up higher than I used to until someone metioned it to me. Guess dry fire really does work.

Barricade shooting is a weakness for me now. I don't know if my grip is changing as I am off balance or what, but I dropped way too many points.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This morning was reload dry fire practice. No big realizations, just need to look the reload into the magwell more. Working on a delibrate pause has helped. The swinging reloads from 9-3 amd 3-9 are tough because I am finding myself consious of the 180 line. Oddly enough, because I am focusing on muzzle awarness, the reloads are smoother than if I was trying for blazing speed.

I'm two and a half weeks out from Double Tap. I need to get moving on loading up for the match. I am going to have to develop a new load if my normal bullet order doesn't get here soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

This past weekends match proved to me that consistency wins matches as it was my first Production win with the top local competitors in attendance. I won it not by being the best on every stage, but by being the most consistent. I was in the top 5 for every stage and only won 1. I did very well on the field courses, staying within 90% of the leaders. The classifier and short course did not go so well. Had too many Deltas on the speed shoot and I made minor mistakes on the classifier. Where I won the match was the memory stage. The plan I came up with was not the fastest that I saw, but it was the easiest to remember. I won that stage while my main competition bombed it by getting lost in the shooting order and missing a few targets.

Video of match:

One thing that I absolutely need to fix is my magazine pouches. Now that I am moving faster, I find myself losing magazines on any lengthy run. I will remake the spacers for a tighter fit, but for now, tape inside the pouch seems to work.

This week was supposed to be my off week between phases in my training program. However, after dropping so many points last match, I decided to spend the week working on my accuracy. No timed fire, just plain shooting groups and using the dot Torture target. I need to get my accuracy to the point where I can get maximum points no matter how difficult the shot. Ultimate goal is going to be able to get A zone head shots at 25 yards reliably, just may not need it in a match.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...



Finally getting around to reviewing the Double Tap match. First off, whoever told me that the match was going to be a hosefest LIED. There were some tough shots and tight positions. But I like those matches much more than a hose fest. I did about as well as I expected to do. Came in 17th overall roduction and 3rd B class. Not too bd for only my second major match. Dropped a lot of points this match, much more than I usually do. I was having a problem controling my nerves throughout the match. Normally during make ready, I take a sight picture, load the gun and am good to go. This time I had to do some breathing excercises to lower my heart rate and run the stage a few more times in my head before I was good to go.

Onto the match review:

Stage 9

First stage of the match and I was pretty wired up. There was a pretty big hole in the stage that everyone on my squad took advantage of. I also noticed that the door had to be open very far before the pop-up targets activated. I planted my foot and shouldered the door open with the gun waiting. People who tried to kick the door, struggled to get the gun on target before it dropped down again. I was worried about my foot position at the door as I watched a lot of people fault there and get hit with 4 procedurals. I think that slowed down my movement into the final position. I had one un-intended reload in the retreat portion of the stage. I had planned on doing it that way the day before, but found a better way that morning. Not sure if that reload was done becuase I had previously planned and rehearsed it many times or just a fact that my feet were moving so I should reload.

Stage 10
Wasn't recorded, but the stage had your weak hand cuffed to a wire. They tightened the wire to the point that it was uncomfortable for me to freestyle the stage, so I shot it strang hand. Looking back at it, when the entire stage has to be shot that way, I should have the next mag in my left hand ready to go. That might save me half a second on reloads. My second reload was terrible. My hands were shaking for some reason and I couldn't steady them. That had to be the longest standing reload in my short competition career. Points were reasonable, but made up a few C's with more C's costing me time.

Stage 11

I really hit my groove on this stage. I felt it was by far the best of the match. I got the anchor on the peg very quickly (that cost people a lot of time) and hosed the first two targets. After the lean, I took a step back to allow the gun to easily clear the wall. This also gave me the advantage of being able to rebound off that leg. Nice little trick that I need to do more of. Shooting on the move was smooth and I only dropped 6 points the entire stage.

Stage 12

Very gimmicky stage that was dangerous as hell. I was more worried about not falling and controlling my muzzle than actually shooting. The small balls forced you to shuffle step so as not to get a ball under your foot. The only two mikes in the entire match came on this stage. Both times I was pulling off the targets too early. I did get 2A's on the swinger and was happy about that. I am getting more conifident with moving targets where I am engaging something else before they can appear. I didn't do that on this stage even though it was planned. I guess I haven't practiced that enough to where it just happens yet.

Chrono
Was slightly nervous about the chrono as I have never had my ammo chronoed at a match before. I was sure I would make it, but was interested to see the velocity differences between chronos. Turns out there wasn't any. I came in at 134 PF, right where I chronoed at home at.

Stage 1

Found it difficult to get back in a groove after lunch. I was doing good until I moved into the last position. I had to make up a shot earlier which forced me to slide lock. I knew I had enough ammo to shoot the last position but I had a total brain fart. After sitting and watching the movers go through an arc and a half before finally engaging them, I threw an extra shot at them. This made my brain go "your out of ammo" as I engaged the last target. I took one shot at the last target reloaded and took another. I still had one in the gun when I reloaded. I wasn't at slide lock and knew better as soon as I started the reload, but finished it anyways. I had to walk away from my squad for a few minutes to collect my thoughts as I was very pissed at myself. That was a huge mental mistake that cost me big.

Stage 2

This was a memory type stage with the longest shots on average of the entire match. I generally do really well on memory stages, but was still thinking about the mental mistake on the previous stage. This time, I ended up hunting for targets in the second and third position. I changed my reference points for positions from spots on the ground to the danger target themselves. Since I was already looking at the danger target, I decided I should shoot those first, basically in exactly the opposite order that I rehearsed. I ended up having two very conflicting plans in my head that were very well rehearsed. I dropped a lot of points on this stage due to losing my head.

Stage 3

Finally things started coming back on track. It was an unloaded start and you had to transfer a coin from one side to the other. You were allowed to have mags on the tables or on your person. I put the coin on my first mag and was able to pick up the coin and mag at the same time. This saved some time. I knew I had a few deltas in the first postion, but my plan wouldn't allow me to make them up. Should have taken the make-up shots from the middle position, but didn't think of it then. After I shot the stage, I found an even better way to game it, but I know better for next time. In the last position, my splits stayed the same, even though the targets were getting closer.

Stage 4
I went with the second best plan that I could think of. The better plan was to shoot the steel from behind the barrels, then move to the ports. There were two steel plate covering a potion of a target that left very little A zone to hit. At that time I wasn't feeling very confident in my accuracy and figured it was to risky to do. By taking the kneeling position, I had the entire A zone available. I need to work on my retreat reloads as that looked very choppy. Also my running could be quicker. Overall it was a good ending to the first day.

Stage 5

First stage of day 2 and I was feeling great. I got rid of some of the nerves that were bothering me the first day. Only had one make-up shot in the entire stage and my points were reasonable. I was able to engage a target before the drop turner poresented itself and was happy about that. The second drop turner I debated swinging onto the other target first, but decided to take a few steps instead.

Stage 6

I did fairly well. Not too much I can comment about on this one. Had a little bit of trigger freeze in the next to last port. I think my movement could have been a little bit more agressive. Overall, points and time were decent.

Stage 7

I treated this as a survival stage. Didn't want to do anything fancy or move too aggressively. Falling off the plank would have been disasterous. I need to keep my hips more in line with the direction of movement. That would allow me to move faster, but I haven't practiced that angle of movement too much. Had to make up a few shots on the long range targets as I knew I had bad points. Couldn't tell you where I hit, just knew it wasn't the shot I wanted.

Stage 8

I found a big way to game this stage, but I wasn't confident enough in the rules to actually try it. I decided to play it safe and shoot it the way I originally planned. Points wise, this was the best stage of the match. I had one bravo that probably should have been a miss. I saw the sights jump up before the shot broke as I was slowly rolling backwards, but called it a hit and moved on. I think it might have been faster if I swapped positions one and two. This was the first stage in a while that I actually recalled seeing the front sight for every shot. As such I think it was the best stage of the match. It could have been faster, but I was happy that I called every shot.

Overall

I did well about doing what was necessary to keep my cool and not let my nerves completely ruin the match. I am very proud of how I did and was very happy to finish as high as I did. Found some things that I need to work on but also found some areas where my practice is really starting to show. If I keep up at the rate I am, I see A class coming in the very near future. I have the ability to shoot like a master class shooter, but am still struggling with the consistency of it. When I hit it, it really felt good. I knew before the start signal that it was going to be a good run. Now how do I get that feeling every stage on demand?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...

ZOMBIE THREAD ALERT!

I was extremely lax in updating this journal last year. I'm planning on updating it more this year, just to get some thoughts written down.

At the end of last year, I made my goal of making A class. It just happened to be in Limited rather than in Production; I should have the A card in Production after this next update. I had some problems with my gun last year at Area 4 that convinced me to buy a backup gun. I purchased another Springfield XDm 5.25 from Rich at Canyon Creek Custom. I like it so much that it is now my primary gun; just something about the feel of it.

My goal for this year is to make Master in Production. I will still play in Limited from time to time, but Production is still my main focus. Now how am I going to make it happen?

One of the biggest things areas of improvements is points. I have been dropping way too many points, normally shooting 85-90% possible points in a match. I know I am an accurate shot, just get a little lazy on the sight picture. For every match this year, even in some practices, I am going to strive to shoot at least 90% points with no Deltas. I feel that this is easily achievable if I just focus on it. Most of the time I feel like it is a poor index on the target. I get lots of A-C hits that are about 2" apart, but just riding the scoring line. To try and fix this, I will be using zebra stripe targets very heavily. My pace will slow down initially, but with 100% of the A zone available, it shouldn't.

Another area of improvement is my draws and reloads. I will be heavily using drills 1-12 is Anderson's book. Granted a standing draw and reload is a very minor part of a major match, it is very important on classifiers. For your standard classifier, a draw and reload can compromise up to 50% of the total time. There is a lot to be gained here, especially when trying to make M/GM. Some will say that this will make me a paper M/GM, so be it. I feel that being able to shoot like the best will have a significant impact of my field course performance.

The major matches that I plan to attend this year are:

  • Texas Open
  • Space City Challenge
  • Double Tap Championship
  • Production Nationals(A4 if I can't get a slot)

I was trying to shoot 3-4 local matches a month, but I am starting to feel that it is not worth my time/money. I will always go to at least my club match every month as I get to shoot for free if I help set-up plus it gets me free range time. The other club matches will be hit or miss for the time being. I think I will improve faster using 200 rounds on the practice range rather than a match.

My proposed training schedule is to do one hour of dry-fire every morning based off of Steve Anderson's book. Plus I want to get in 15 minute sessions in the evenings as often as possible. These sessions will be based off of Stoeger's dry fire book. Live fire will consist of Tuesdays and Thursdays with an extended session on the weekends I am not shooting a match. I liked Seeklander's training program when I did it last year, so I may follow that again, just making things more challenging. I'm thinking of doing 3-4 blocks of training a week (accuracy, speed, movement, steel challenge type, weird/unique things), but am not sure the best way to combine them into one session. I have read that a good way to do a drill is to first shoot it for points, then get as much speed as you can get hits, then just pure shot calling mode.

Here's to a great 2013 shooting season. :cheers:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice post. I've been wondering about match time vs practice time. I posted this:

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=168149

I know you have a class coming up with BS. From reading his posts, he's fanatical about points (as many other's are as well) and getting more points without losing speed. Like near 100% of points available. I think you'll get alot from his class.

At the last match, you only had 82% of the points available (with penalties). Never mind you placed 2nd. Very scary if you get to 93% and the same speed. 93% won last years Production National. Being the expert that I am, I think you should raise your goal to 93%.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice post. I've been wondering about match time vs practice time. I posted this:

http://www.brianenos...howtopic=168149

I know you have a class coming up with BS. From reading his posts, he's fanatical about points (as many other's are as well) and getting more points without losing speed. Like near 100% of points available. I think you'll get alot from his class.

At the last match, you only had 82% of the points available (with penalties). Never mind you placed 2nd. Very scary if you get to 93% and the same speed. 93% won last years Production National. Being the expert that I am, I think you should raise your goal to 93%.

I decided not to go to the Stoeger class. Just couldn't fit it in the budget.

Don't get me started on points dropped last match. That was embarrassing. When I shoot limited, having 25 rounds to start with makes me go into hoser mode. I'm starting to find that the times for shooting limited minor and production are going to be very similar. Alpha Charlie on almost every target is not acceptable. Plus I don't make up much time not reloading as that is usaually done on the move in Production anyways. Even shooting Limited, he difference shooting major is more than enough to makeup for having ~5 less rounds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Intersting practice sessions yesterday and today. Yesterday I had to go to the public pistol line as all the private bays were rented out. So I shot at the 15 yrd line. I worked on slow fire accuracy for a bit. My 50 round group was within 5" and the main cluster was below 3". My accuracy is improving very well. Eventually I want to get my group size down to 2" with zero fliers at 15 yards. For 50 rounds, that will require some extreme discipline. Then I shot about 75 rounds of bill drills. No drawing was allowed on the line, but I was able to try some different grips. I found that flaring my elbows out a bit helps keep the gun recoiling consistently. It doesn't actually reduce the recoil, but the front sight seemed to fall into the same place easier. I do have a slight trigger jerk when I try to shoot fast. While my gun is sighted in properly, my bill drills resulted in groupd centered on the left 1/3 of the A zone which also resulted in some C's. I either need to index along the right AC line or try and figure out how to correct the jerk. The last drill was started from high ready to upper A zone. I was able to quickly present to pistol, get a good sight picture and hit the A zone. A 15 yrd head shot was almost easy. Only when I rushed the sight picture did I miss. Makes me wonder what I was doing on the bill drills.

Today I went out after work and worked on some shot calling at 25 yards. I drew at the buzzer and took one shot. Fast draw and acceptab le sight picture, but really focuse on when the sights lifted. Marked where I thought the shot landed on the target. Then I repeated it with two rounds at match pace. Compare targets and repeat. I was having a difficult time discerning A and C hits, but could clearly see a D or miss. After about 50 rounds of doing this, I started calling my shots pretty well. But that only lasted for about 20 rounds before I started getting lazy.

In order to help distinguish between A and C hits, I purposfully misaligned the sights to see where the bullet impact would be. I discovered that if the front sight is in the notch with rear sight centered on target, the bullet will not miss the target at 25 yards. So all of my misses have come from a severly jerked trigger or a change in the rear sight location relative to the target.

I ended the session with 5 round bill drills at 7 yards from surrender. By this time my hands were starting to feel very chilled. I had a bunch of 2.3-2.5 second runs. The shooting part was good, but the draw was abismal. Normally at that distance I can do a 1 second draw flat, but today was a quarter to half second slow. I just couldn't get the gun out of the holster.My goal for this drill is sub 2 seconds with all A hits. I'm close, but I need to work on the draw a bit.

BTW: I love the 4-H kids that shoot on the practical shooting bay. They left me a whole pile of 9mm brass to pick up! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dryfire last night reiterated the importance of relaxation. I had set a 1.1 sec par time for a static draw, from surrender and relaxed. The first couple times I had difficulty meeting the par time. But I got grooved in and was making it no problem. Wasn't slow but didn't feel rushed at all. When I did try and push the pace, the sights werre never aligned. Instead I just concentrated on the feeling of relaxation. Feel the gun come up and into alignment.

Set the shoulders, hear the beep, draw. Nice and easy, like ringing a doorbell. Takes no effort and very little time. It was beautiful. I feel like I could do that every time.

Got below a 0.8 relaxed and 0.9 surrender at 5 yards on 1/2 scale targets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Went to the Alpha Mike mothly club match on Sunday. My goal was to have no penalties and no D's with 90% points. Except for having 2 Deltas, I met my goal. I shot 91.4% of the points.

Overall the match went pretty good, with me ending up winning Production by a hair. I got a rough start on the classifier (El Prez). I felt like I shot it too timidly. I know I can get below 6 seconds with good points, but something didn't just feel right. The next 3 stages went pretty well. Had minimum make up shots on the steel. I need to work on my moving reloads a bit. A couples of times I had planned on shooting moving into position but I was already there before the gun was ready.

I got off my plan on the last stage. The positioning to see a steel plate in the first shooting position was very tight. I ended up being too far forward and couldn't see the plate initially. A few misses on the plate screwed up my round count for the remainder of the stage. But except for the odd reload points, you can hardly tell I was off plan when watching the video. I think I did a very good job of saving that stage from being a potential meltdown. I had to think a lot and react to slidelock a few times, but it paid off. I just focused on shooting Alphas.

This match has me feeling very good about the Texas Open in a few weeks. My shooting is on par with where I think my ability should be. Wonder how much I can push the performance in two weeks time?

Match Results:

https://www.practiscore.com//match-results/uuid?uuid=c09e13fe-4fab-46a2-86d3-2ac9d399c425

Match Video:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After watching my videos again and looking at where I dropped points, I have a signifant problem going from fast hoser type shooting to accuracy. The misses on small plates and D's on far targets came immediately after a target within 7 yards. Not sure if it is a trigger control issue or a sighting issue, but I'm guessing it is both. Need to set up a drill to work on close and fast followed by far and tight. I think a 5 yard paper target followed by a 25 yards USP and a paper target will do the trick. I might leave the steel out of it, but since it is pass/fail I may learn faster.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Points are still the bane of my existence. Yesterdays match I shot 88.8% of the available points and 85.3% after penalties (1 Mike, 1 No-shoot). The shots really were not all that hard, I was just impatient. A majority of my C's and D's are coming from the second shot. Either the gun is not recoiling consistently or I am pulling off the target too soon. But as the C hits are very close to the A zone, I am thinking that I am just not bringing the gun back to the same spot every time.

I am getting much more confident on moving targets. I had 2 called misses on swingers that I was able to make up on the next pass. Every swinger ended up with 2A hits, the one DT was A/C. Small steel still needs work though. Mini poppers at 15 yards shouldn't be much of a problem, but I had to take 3 make up shots in one array, forcing me to do a standing reload for one single shot. It wasn't the low shooting position, I just wasn't being patient on the sight picture or having the propper trigger press.

Ending on a high note, I redeemed myself on El Pres. Shot it like I know I can and ended up with a master class score. 2 more and I will officially be a Master Class shooter!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Video from the last River City match.

Scores:

https://www.practiscore.com//match-results/uuid?uuid=93D81958-809E-4B9B-8651-05E3E4391D8A

I'll do a more in-depth analysis hopefully tomorrow, but what I noticed putting the video together is that my transitions on targets more than 5 feet apart are horribly slow. I should be driving the gun towards the target, but it almost looks like there is a bungee cord on the previous target trying to pull me back. I also noticed on El Pres that I got a much better grip after the reload than on the draw. The splits didn't sound much different, but the muzzle flip was noticeably less. I wish the camera was on my left to see what I did with the grip. I'll have to try something like that in my next session making sure the camera angle is right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Video from 2013 Texas Open Championship:

Finished High B in Production beating out all the A class shooters as well. 9th overall shooting 84.45% of the match winner (debatable as true match winner had entire stage missing from his score).

Analysis to come later, but I've already ordered parts to fix the double feed issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I made MASTER!!!! Mini Mart put me over the top to get 85.3% :) I know I can shoot like a master on any given stage, I just need the consistency that goes along with it.

Since last update I've competed in the Space City Challenge. I'm not really happy with my performance there. Too many misses. 2 of which were on a zebra target at 3 yards. Did not pay it enough respect. I did learn a few things from the match though. Preconcieved notions of a poor performance will absolutely result in a poor performance. The entire week leading up to the match, I just felt off.

I've made a lot of gains in speed recently, but has accuracy is still suffering. I have really been focusing hard on accuracy lately. I have seen a definate improvement. In practice, I am having no problems hitting the A zone. Though I have been shying away from the no-shoots a little too much. One practice I had a no-shoot covering the top half of the A zone (I know very weird presentation). Subconsiouscly, I know I am missing high, so I have been shying low. I know I can shoot a 5" group at 25 yards without much thought. But the chance of fliers had me aiming at center of brown resulting in mid C hits with good grouping. I think that is just a confidence thing.

I've got less than a month till Double Tap. Even though I just made master, I absolutely refuse to be last master. I'll be practicing 3 times a week, every other day switching from accuracy to movement. Que the Rocky Montage!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Just got back from the Double Tap Championship. No video as I forgot my memory card in my work computer :(. All I can say about this match is that it was an eye opening experience. Very great match with some interesting target presentations. I shot to my ability, a little conservative, but not too much. Exactly how I wanted to shoot. I have never been to a competition where the production field was this deep. Over 25% of the production shooters were Master class or above. I finished 18th/79 and am really glad that I didn't finish last M. Only 1 B class shooter placed higher than me, and not by much.

I was squadded with Mink, Hopkins and a bunch of other great Production shooters. The way they were shooting looked effortless, but aggressive. They usually beat me by 3-5 seconds on the stages. Where I had to pause on target after a transition to confirm my sight alignment, they just started shooting because they knew their sights were where they wanted them. I really need to work on being aggressive in my transitions. I'm sure I'll overshoot the target for a while, but I realy need to push the speed there. Then I will work on slowing down as the gun settles onto target. From what I saw, most of my time lost was in not being ready to shoot as soon as the target became available, whether it was hidden by a wall or just a transition. I'm not sure how much of that is just natural indexing or using aiming points.

This match really gave me the push I needed to practice harder. I have been getting used to winning my local matches a majority of the time recently. I needed to be outclassed like I was this past weekend to push me even harder. Lots of work ahead. I need to rework my plan, just not sure how yet.

Next match: Texas Summer Shootout.

The question is, should I shoot Production, where I can compete for the Division Win, or Limited, where I can try and beat my shooting buddy, who, as of right now is better than me?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Had a really good practice last night. One of the club members set up a rough array of paper targets. They were from 15-25 yards and all had some form of hardcover or no-shoots. One zebra hardcover, one zebra with no-shoots, one bottom half hard cover and one head shot with no-shoot. That array made trigger control and ensuring that you saw a good sight picture key for a good run. I put a lot of holes into the no-shoots and hardcover when I was really trying to push the pace. But I could dial it back and get my hits pretty much on demand. I had a lot of trouble on the head shot, kept missing high as I really wanted to get my alphas on it. The misses that occured on the zebra targets were mostly to the right. I'm pretty sure that is a result of my weak thumb applying pressure on the slide. Something I will pay attention to in dry fire. I was also having issues over transitioning on a 90 degree transition. Focused on not over transitioning, only to under transition. Somewhere in between is my happy medium.

We also shot some poppers from 30 yards, but there is not much to say about those. I was able to ring those pretty good when I actually watched my front sight.

I am finding it easier to be accurate with my practice gun then my match gun. I'm wondering if the difference is that my practice gun has a much lighter trigger? After my match this weekend, I may work on bringing the pull weight up to where my match gun is or the opposite.

I'm also considering changing my front sight to a wider width and getting rid of the fiber. Right now, there is a lot of daylight on either side of the front sight, which is slowing me down at distance. The fiber has also been distracting to me. I forgot to black out the top before practice and caught myself looking at the dot quite a bit. Normally I take a magic marker to everything but the front face to really dim it down. I'm going to try completely blacking it out to see if this is the direction I want to go in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Took a permanent marker to my front fiber last night. That was pretty cool, I think I'm going to roll that way for a while. I definately noticed I wasn't picking up the front sight as fast as I normall would, but my accuracy and ability to call shots was awesome. On a 25 yard zebra target, I could tell when I had one right one the scoring line and that it probably needed a makeup. I've never seen with that kind of resolution before. Height alignment was still an issue, but that just means I need to pay attention a little more.

I started the practice session out with the Frank Garcia Dot Drill from 5 yards. I know, its supposed to be 7, but I've never shot it clean from there. I started off with no par time, just shooting my sights. Hit quality was ok. For my last run, I decided to run with the 5 second par time. Shoting was faster and somehow the hits were greatly improved. I still had a couple outside the circle, but they weren't a trigger issue, just slightly high or low. I'm wondering if it is my grip somehow. The last run also showed me that I shoot better under a little pressure, or when I absolutely don't care.

Moved onto 35 yard bill drills. Most of the runs were ~6 seconds with a few charlies. I wasn't really watching my sights on this one enough as I had a miss one string, but no clue where it went.

Ended the session with a similar set up to the previous one. Closest target was 15 yard head shot, then a variety of hardcover out to 30 yards and a mini popper at 35. I had some issues of not running the set up exactly how I wanted to. I planned to shoot outside in, to work on wide transitions. But the first couple of times, I shot left to right as I had a target available. Took a short break and really rehearsed what I wanted to do and fixed that issue. Visualization on weird engagement orders is really going to be important. I shot that array set up pretty well. Ocassionally throwing one into the hard cover, but like I said, I could see the left to right issues. The head shot gave me some troubles, so I will keep that in for the next couple of sessions.

Finally, I got a slot to Production nationals. Just waiting on final approval for time off work, but I've already started preparing for it. Ordered 7k bullets from BBI, they should be here next week. I've got about 16 weeks to really practice hard and get ready for it. I keep saying I'm going to make a training plan, but never do or at least never stick to it. For starters, I need to start handling my gun every day for at least 15 minutes. Until I can find a plan I like and am likely to stick to, that is a good start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...